Hitler's Last Secretary (13 page)

The strong coffee we had been drinking to keep us awake all this time wouldn’t let us drop straight off to sleep now. But gradually the guests and the Führer’s colleagues withdrew, and finally the Berghof lay in deep peace until next morning.

This was the usual way we spent our days and nights for the first few days or weeks. Gradually more and more guests arrived. Minister of State Esser
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and his wife were invited for a few days. Frequent guests included Frau Morell, Frau Dietrich, Baldur von Schirach
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and his wife, Heinrich Hoffmann and Frau Marion Schönmann,
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a friend of Eva Braun. Hitler’s permanent colleagues and staff were glad of any guest who would entertain the Führer. Then they didn’t have to be present themselves on his walks and at tea every day.

Hitler envied his guests their civilian clothing. ‘It’s all very well for you,’ he told Brandt, who turned up in lederhosen one day when the sun was shining brightly. ‘Once I always went around like that myself.’ ‘You could now, my Führer, you’re in private here.’ ‘No, as long as we’re at war I shall not be out of uniform, and anyway my knees are so white. That looks terrible with shorts.’ Then he continued, ‘But after the war I’ll hang up my uniform, retire here to the Berghof, and someone else can look after the business of government. And when I’m an old man I’ll write my memoirs, surround myself with clever, intellectual people and never see any more officers. They’re all stubborn and thick-headed, prejudiced and set in their ways. My two old secretaries will be with me, typing. The young ones will all be married and leave, and when I’m old the older secretaries will still be able to keep up with my speed.’ I couldn’t help it: I asked, ‘My Führer, when
will
the war be over, then?’ ‘I don’t know,’ he replied, ‘but when we’ve won it, anyway.’ And his kindly, friendly, smiling face once again assumed the hard, fanatical expression that I knew so well from the bronze busts of the Führer.

Usually Hitler didn’t talk much about the war, and said little about politics. ‘We shall win this war because we’re fighting for an ideal and not for Jewish capitalism, which is what spurs on our enemies’ soldiers. Russia is dangerous, and only Russia, because Russia fights for its own idea of the world as fanatically as we do. But good will always be victorious, there are no two ways about that.’ No one in the whole company contradicted him. There were no military men present, and the rest of us believed what we heard because we wanted to believe it. Hitler radiated a power that neither men nor women could entirely escape feeling. Personally modest and kindly, but as Führer a harsh megalomaniac, he lived for his ‘mission’. He sometimes said that it demanded endless sacrifices of him. ‘If you only knew how much I’d sometimes like to walk the streets incognito, without companions! I’d like to go into a department store and buy Christmas presents myself, sit in a coffee-house and watch people go by. But I can’t.’ We said, ‘But kings and emperors used to mingle incognito with their people in the old days. A pair of dark glasses, a civilian suit, and you’d never be recognized.’ He replied, ‘I don’t want any masquerade, and anyway I’d be recognized all the same. I’m too well known, and my voice would give me away.’ For although he had said, ‘I’ve never feared assassination when driving through the crowds in my car – at the worst I’ve been afraid it might knock down a child,’ he still wouldn’t risk recognition if he was alone. He thought that the acclamations of the people would spoil all his fun.

It was some time since Hitler had appeared in public to receive the plaudits of the population. His headquarters, of course, were officially unknown for reasons of military secrecy. But when the Führer was staying in Berlin his presence was kept strictly secret too. Once the swastika flag used to be flown above the Reich Chancellery, and the inhabitants of Berlin knew, from the busy coming and going of cars, that ‘the Führer’ was in town. For some years, however, only those in the know had been aware that a double guard on the entrances to the Chancellery meant Hitler was in residence. Even on his journeys by special train, everything was done to avoid drawing attention to him. The windows of his carriage were blacked out even in broad daylight and bright sunshine, and he lived in there by artificial light just as he did in his bunker. At the Berghof, where crowds once used to gather outside the last gates before the road up to the house, there was no one waiting now.

Before the war, the gates had been opened once a day when Hitler went for his walk, and people used to flock in and line his path. Hysterical women took away stones on which his foot had trodden, and even the most sensible people went crazy. Once a truck taking bricks up to the Berghof was actually plundered by a couple of madwomen, and the bricks, which hadn’t been so much as touched by the Führer’s hands and feet, ended up as precious souvenirs in people’s living-room windows.

And then there were the love letters sent by such ladies. They made up a large part of the post arriving at the Führer’s Chancellery.

In 1943, however, Hitler spent his time at the Berghof entirely with his friends and colleagues. He had a special fondness for Albert Speer.
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‘He’s an artist, and a kindred spirit,’ he said. ‘I have the warmest human feelings for him because I understand him so well. He is an architect like me, intelligent, modest, not a stubborn military hothead. I never thought he would master his great task so well. But he also has great organizational talents and he’s perfectly capable of his task.’ Speer was certainly a very pleasant, likeable character: not by any means a Party functionary, not an upstart, but someone of real ability who didn’t lower himself to be a mere yes-man. Remarkably, he seemed to be one of the few people from whom Hitler would take contradiction. He himself once said, ‘When I work a plan out with Speer and ask him to do something, he thinks it over and then, after a while, he says, “Yes, my Führer, I think that can be done.” Or perhaps he may say, “No, it can’t be done, not like that.” And then he gives me convincing arguments why not.’

Speer did wear uniform, for he held an official position, and what is an official position without a uniform? However, his uniform was always slightly incorrect, and he never looked military in it. His hair usually needed cutting, although he noticed that only when his wife pointed it out. I never saw him intoxicated, and he didn’t join in any of the parties thrown by people who knew Hitler. I didn’t notice him being especially friendly with any of the Party or Wehrmacht people either.

Heinrich Hoffmann, however, was different. He too was a frequent and important guest of the Führer. A veteran of the days when the Party was struggling for power, he always used to be around with his camera when Hitler made an appearance anywhere. ‘Oh yes, Hoffmann used to be a splendid fellow, he was still slim and supple then, and worked tirelessly away with his elaborate old camera. Back then he still had to slip under the black cloth and do all kinds of hair-raising things with his heavy equipment to get a good shot. He’s a very loyal comrade.’ So in the end, out of gratitude for his faithful services, the little photographer Heinrich Hoffmann was appointed ‘professor’. Professor of what, I always wondered – business acumen, maybe? Or was it an award for his keen instinct? For out of thirty different political parties, he had chosen to photograph the National Socialists. And he really did take excellent shots and was also a gifted graphic artist, very entertaining and sometimes even witty – but not likeable. At least, we called him the ‘Reich Drunk’, and in the years when I knew him that description certainly fitted.

Hitler showed Hoffmann great affection and forbearance, as he did with other old comrades from the early days of the Party. While he would dismiss or demote members of his staff or generals without a qualm if they opposed him, or if someone slandered them, he would excuse many failings in his old companions – personal defects or flaws of character that had a far worse effect on the Party cause and Nazi ideology than honest, down-to-earth disagreement openly expressed.

It certainly upset him a lot to see that Hoffmann was so devoted to the bottle and had a reputation as a womanizer, but he knew nothing about the Professor’s orgies in Vienna and Munich, and on his estate at Altötting, and the indignation they aroused among the people. Well, who was going to tell him? Who would have dared speak out against a friend of Hitler? The only person who did try to intervene was Eva Braun. She told Hitler: ‘You really must do something; Hoffmann’s behaviour is terrible. He’s drunk the whole time, always eating and drinking massively, and at a time when most people don’t have enough to eat at all.’ So then Hitler did get angry and told Hoffmann off, but it didn’t work for long. ‘His first wife’s death hit Hoffmann so hard,’ Hitler explained, by way of excuse. ‘He just couldn’t get over it, and that’s when he began drinking. He used to be a good husband.’ But apparently even in his prime Hitler’s comrade in the Party struggle hadn’t despised a good drop of something, for Hitler himself told many anecdotes showing that Hoffmann had never been known for his abstinence. For instance, Hitler once amused the company at table by describing a drive with Hoffmann in the 1920s. ‘Hoffmann had bought a new car, a Ford, and he insisted that I must try the car out with him. I said, “No, Hoffmann, I’m not going for any drive with you.” But he kept pestering me, so finally I gave in, and we set out from Schell-ingstrasse. It was already evening, it had been raining too, and Hoffmann went tearing round the corners like an idiot, almost ran into the corner of a building, ignored street junctions. “Hoffmann,” I said, “watch out, you’re driving like a madman! This is terribly dangerous.” “No, no, my Führer, it just seems that way to you because you haven’t had a drink. If you’d put back a good glass or so of red wine like me you wouldn’t notice a thing.” At that I got out, and I never went for a drive with him again.’

Since the beginning of the war Hoffmann had had few opportunities to see the Führer. He had no business at headquarters, so the Berghof was the only place where Hitler could meet him. At first the Führer was always glad to see his faithful supporter again after an interval of many months, but soon Hoffmann began getting on his nerves. ‘Hoffmann, your nose looks like a rotten pumpkin. I think if we struck a match under your nostrils your breath would catch fire and you’d explode. Soon there’ll be red wine flowing in your veins instead of blood,’ he once told Hoffmann, when he turned up at a meal and even the Führer couldn’t help noticing that he’d had too much already. At least Hoffmann never used to arrive drunk in Hitler’s presence, and the Führer was sorry to see his old friend and comrade letting himself go so badly.

Finally Hitler told his adjutants Schaub and Bormann, ‘Please make sure that Professor Hoffmann is sober when he comes to see me. I’ve invited him because I want to talk to him, not so that he can drink himself into a stupor.’ So poor Hoffmann had some difficulty finding drinking companions. All of a sudden none of Hitler’s entourage seemed able to find Hoffmann a nice bottle of something, and no one had time to drink with him. Our guest later took to bringing his own supplies, but that annoyed Hitler so much that Hoffmann was hardly ever invited again.

For the time being he could still amuse the Führer and the rest of the company at table with his jokes and reminiscences. For instance, he once told the following joke. ‘Here’s a riddle, my Führer: you, Himmler and Göring are all standing under an umbrella in the middle of the road. Which of you gets wet?’ No one could guess, so Hoffmann told us the answer. ‘None of you, my Führer, because it isn’t raining.’ Hitler shook his head. ‘Dear me, Hoffmann, you’re getting old!’ Everyone laughed. ‘And just think, my Führer, the man who told me that joke is in Dachau now!’ ‘I don’t believe you, Hoffmann, that’s a really stupid joke,’ said the Führer. ‘Oh, but he really is in Dachau, my Führer – he lives there,’ said Hoffmann triumphantly, which made Hitler laugh a lot. ‘You’re worse than Count Bobby,’ he said.

Then there were long conversations by the hearth in the evening about art galleries and their curators, and the exhibitions in the House of German Art, organized by Hoffmann. These conversations bored everyone else terribly, but Hitler loved painting, and Hoffmann knew his taste – and above all he knew the financial value of the old masters.

Once Hoffmann’s daughter, the wife of Baldur von Schirach,
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came too. She was a nice, natural Viennese woman,
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with a delightful flow of talk, but she had to leave suddenly when she raised a very unwelcome subject in tea-time conversation. I wasn’t present myself, but Hans Junge told me about it. As Hitler was sitting by the hearth with his guests, she suddenly said, ‘My Führer, I saw a train full of deported Jews in Amsterdam the other day. Those poor people – they look terrible. I’m sure they’re being very badly treated. Do you know about it? Do you allow it?’ There was a painful silence. Soon afterwards Hitler rose to his feet, said goodnight and withdrew. Next day Frau von Schirach went back to Vienna, and not a word was said about the incident. Apparently she had exceeded her rights as a guest and failed to carry out her duty of entertaining Hitler.

In early April – Hitler was now feeling well rested and relaxed-preparations began for the big state receptions. Ribbentrop came for talks with Hitler almost daily, and had lunch with us. Hewel really had his hands full. Almost all the leaders of our allied states were to be received. The guesthouse of the German Reich was near Salzburg. It was an enchanting little Baroque castle built by Fischer von Erlach and splendidly fitted out by Hitler. He held his ‘great state receptions’ here at Schloss Klessheim; the Berghof wasn’t so suitable for them.